In the End
by Mr. Frank
Summary: It's weird, because they're kind of in the middle of a war, when you think about it. A war against the infected, zombified, apocalyptic end of the world, sure, but a war none-the-less. It's a war that, in all likelihood, they won't see the end of. Oneshot.


**T**his started as one of those writing challenges where you put on a playlist and write to each song, but I started to notice a bit of a trend in the shorts I was coming up with. Realizing I was following a single plot thread, I glued them together with a bit of narration and some bluntly placed linebreaks, and this was the result! I picked random city names at the end, to stick with the movie's theme, my apologies if I'm treading on anyone else's name sakes. Feedback is so very helpful and loved beyond measure, so feel free to leave a review! With that said, enjoy~

* * *

It's weird, because they're kind of in the middle of a war, when you think about it. A war against the infected, zombified, apocalyptic end of the world, sure, but a war none-the-less. It's a war that, in all likelihood, they won't see the end of—one way or another (and this isn't something they haven't realized) they're going to be consumed by the chaos and bloodlust overrunning the planet they call home.

Eventually the day will come when Zombieland sucks them in a chews them up and _doesn't_ spit them back out.

But right now they're lying together—Columbus and Wichita and Little Rock and Tallahassee and no one else—with the dew damp grass beneath their backs and the stars above them, and for a brief moment they can forget all about the fate that Zombieland has in store for them.

If only for a few dark hours, they can imagine that it won't end at any minute. They can imagine that everything they've created and stumbled into will last for the years and years that these kinds of friendships are really meant to.

And in this quiet moment, they can imagine that the only other beings in the entire world are the people lying beside them.

And, in this one moment, they can imagine—they can _believe_—that this is the way it will be forever.

And in this _one moment_, they can forget that believing in a dream doesn't make it any more real.

* * *

When the day finally comes, it lacks the kind of build up that they are expecting. But maybe that's the whole point—what they're _expecting_. They're so convinced that when the 'big one' finally comes, it will announce its self, let them be prepared, allow them to make some kind of miraculous hero's escape into the night.

Instead they're completely unaware, separated through-out the long abandoned cabin as the zombies approach, a horde somehow alerted to the presence of a food source being found in shorter and shorter supply.

But, in the bigger scheme of things, maybe knowing they were coming wouldn't have mattered after all.

* * *

Standing in the dining room, the rest of the house to his back, Columbus's look is true undisguised horror he stares through the windows at the zombies barreling towards the cabin, bearing down on them with a surprising speed.

It's not like the zombies from the movies, he thinks absently—movie zombies were never fast; the way they lumbered about with their arms sticking straight before them. No, _these _zombies are still so damn human, like God damned undead athletes as they slam into the doors, trying to force their way past the furniture barricades.

Arms, covered in smears of blood and pus, protrude from the door as the zombies make headway, pure tenacity forcing the door open inch by inch. Columbus winces, taking a step back as the legs of the chair wedged under the knob squeal across the floor.

"Come on!" Wichita roars, and the blasts of her gun startle Columbus out of his terror. He lets off an involuntary blast when he jumps, but the birdshot isn't wasted as one of the zombies tumbles away from the door, squealing in pain. Cocking his gun, Columbus forces himself to focus. It's not only himself he's protecting now, he reminds himself, glancing sideways at Wichita. She looks just as terrified as he feels, but she's firing her weapon and she's refusing to give up ground.

Reaffirming her place as the strongest girl he's ever met, Columbus takes his strength from her as he aims this time before firing.

Secure in the multiple Ziploc baggies of shells in his pockets, he and the unexpected love of his life unload on the zombies.

They're not going down without a fight.

* * *

They end up holding the dining room for longer than either of them expected they would, but they still can't help seeing failure in being pushed back, forced to retreat to the living room as the first of the zombies crosses the threshold. Wichita goes first, Columbus firing behind him as he follows her. She quickly slams the door behind them, and Columbus is already shoving the sofa into place as the first zombie collides with the door, shaking it to its hinges.

Columbus doesn't hesitate, firing straight into the door. At this close range the hunk of wood is as much a weapon as a shield, thick splinters of wood from the shotgun blast wounding as effectively as the birdshot.

They quickly take advantage of the view the hole in the door creates, and begin picking off the zombies, who are forced to come through the front door single file or in pairs. They're startled by how well their comparatively weak human weapons are doing, lost in the heady feeling of possible victory in sight, when they hear the other gunshots.

"Little Rock!" Wichita shouts, spinning towards the sounds of fighting. It's coming from the garage, and judging by the sounds of multiple gunfire, Tallahassee is with her.

"Oh God," Columbus gasps, his attention jerking back and forth from one fight to another, without ever actually being in either place. And then Wichita blasts a zombie that was actually starting to crawl through the hole in the door, and his focus is slammed back into place as he begins firing on the zombies gaining ground.

And then a high pitched scream echoes from the garage.

The sound Wichita makes is something between a wail and cry of desperation. She takes a step towards the garage, turns back to the door, and then looks up at Columbus. Tears are rolling down her cheeks.

"I have to—please—we—_oh God_," she trails off with a strangled sound, which turns into a shout as she fires on another zombie trying to claw his way through the door.

"Don't worry, it's going to be okay," Columbus says, grabbing Wichita's face between his hands. He doesn't know what's suddenly infusing him with this authority, but he clings to it the way Wichita is now clinging to him. "You stay here," he commands, "keep holding them back. I'll go help them."

Wichita can only nod, makeup running in black rivulets down her face. Somehow Columbus manages a smile, even as he drops one hand to grab the gun he's tucked under his arm so he can fire at the zombie snarling and retching at them.

"Be safe," Wichita gasps, because she can't beg him to stay and really mean it.

Columbus seems to understand, because he smiles that smile of his, tilting his head to one side. Reaching up with his free hand, he brushes a lock of her hair back. A light kiss to her forehead, her nose, her lips, and when she opens eyes she never realized she closed it's to see his squared shoulders hurrying from the room.

His action seems to stir within her the control she'd momentarily lost. Taking a deep breath, Wichita adjusts the grip on her weapon and turns towards the door, expression firm as she stares down the living corpses fighting to be the first to devour her flesh.

Her gun flashes and suddenly the zombies, who had seemed to be gaining the upper hand, are now falling back, forced into a retreat by her ferocious attack. Forced back because Wichita had told Columbus to leave, to go find Tallahassee and her little sister because she wasn't about to watch her only family being torn away from her by a bunch of bloody, festering monsters.

And so Columbus—bumbling, reluctant, terrified, loyal Columbus—had gone, because he knew that, for Wichita, the safety of her sister meant a million times more than her own life did. He knew and he risked his own life to do what she couldn't get it together enough to do herself.

The least she owed him was to hold her ground until he came back.

And for a short few moments everything suddenly fell silent, and, blinking her surprise, Wichita believed she'd done it. The zombie flow had, suddenly, inexplicably, stopped. Breathing hard, and waiting for the haze of gunpowder and sofa fluff to clear, she turned her attention to the garage, listening intently for any sign of what was happening. It seems silence reigns there too—the whole house is suddenly quiet—and then, so unexpected they make her jump, two shots shatter the silence.

Wichita doesn't realize she's holding her breath until she hears the quiet voices, the soft sounds of her friends—her _family_—talking in the next room, and suddenly all the air escapes her in a giant _whoosh _as she relishes the fact that they've seemingly averted yet another near-death-via-zombie experience.

And then the living room door smashes apart, a half dozen zombies pouring through and straight towards her.

Wichita's last thought is a prayer—_Protect them._ Columbus, Tallahassee, God; she doesn't know who she's directing it to.

And, as teeth tear into her flesh, she can only hope that whoever it is she's praying to, they hear her soon.

* * *

Little Rock covers her ears, a terrified cry escaping her lips as the gunfire rattles barely half a dozen feet from her hiding place behind the old icebox. She hears something snarling, a wet splattering sound as blood pours from a rotting, gaping mouth. Tallahassee shouts something, his voice drawn and harsh, as more gun fire rings out.

And then the zombie roars and Tallahassee screams and everything falls silent.

A single, strangled sob escapes Little Rock as she realizes that everything is lost.

And then a shot rings out, then another.

But only two, because Columbus still insists on a gun that only holds two bullets.

"You okay?" He sounds shaken, but Columbus always sounds like that so it doesn't really mean much. Tallahassee's response is just as shaken, which is a little more telling, not that she notices because right now the relief pouring through her veins and out of her eyes in the form of tears turns his voice into nothing but music to Little Rock's ears.

* * *

They would have been fools to not realize what the silence meant.

The gunfire had ceased, Wichita's shouts had stopped, even the zombies had quit their disgusting noises.

And if the silence hadn't been enough to confirm it, then what followed sure was. The sound was soft, a wet smacking, broken occasionally by the sound of something crunching.

Columbus stood frozen, eyes riveted on the door he'd only just come bursting through. For a brief moment it looked like he was going to hurl himself right back through that door, guns blazing, and, before he'd even thought to do it, Tallahassee was reaching out to stop him.

And then the zombies exploded through the wall to their right, and for a brief moment Tallahassee's terror clouded mind found the space to think that he wasn't going to have to hold the kid back, after all.

That thought was quickly derailed when Columbus, in a sickening parody of a time not so long ago, turned towards his older companion. For one long moment he held the man's gaze, and although people always talked about how you could 'see an idea forming in someone's eyes,' Tallahassee had never actually seen such a thing until now.

Because he realized it wasn't the thought forming that you saw.

It was the determination building, the resolve hardening. And that was all you needed to figure out what the thought was.

Columbus's arms were up in the air, his shouts ringing the air, his legs carrying him away from the others, zombies trailing after him without thought, before Tallahassee could gather himself enough to stop him.

* * *

Little Rock may have been twelve, but a fool she was not. She'd seen people live, people die, people eat each other.

And she'd seen people form bonds the likes of which they would never see again.

She knew that was what she was seeing now, as Columbus tore out of the room and Tallahassee's expression turned tortured with indecision and panic and a thousand other expressions.

Brushing the tears from her cheeks—a pointless move, since more just took their place—she rose to her feet, still standing behind the ice box, and simply pointed. Tallahassee's expression was strained, but she motioned to her gun, gave him as strong a smile as she could, and took up a firing position across the ice box.

She ignored the feeling that welled in her chest when Tallahassee took off after Columbus, pushing it aside as he vanished through another doorway, barely making it before the flood of zombies into the room blocked off the exits for good.

They would survive, she knew. Together, they would survive Zombieland.

Her expression hardened.

Even if she had to die to ensure it.

Taking a deep breath, she cocked her weapon, taking careful aim.

She breathed out slowly, and fired.

* * *

When they reach him, it's not exactly what Columbus expected it to be.

Yes, the two zombies tackled him bodily to the floor, and yes, their ridiculous array of bodily fluids splattered him as they hacked and snarled. Yes, it got in his mouth, and _ohdearJesus_ was it disgusting. And yes, a set of teeth buried themselves in his arm and tore a scream from his throat the likes of which he never thought he'd be able to make.

But then the zombies pulled back, shrieking and still spilling fluids, but no longer biting at him, and certainly not proceeding to pull out his tendons with their teeth, next on Columbus's 'How Zombies Kill' checklist.

This was explained a moment later when more gunshots rang out, Columbus only now registering that he'd heard them before the zombies pulled away as well.

The zombies flailed, releasing all manner of interesting death sounds as they collapsed to the ground. One of them landed maybe a foot from Columbus, its head rolling towards him as it dribbled its last. Columbus shivered—even in death, the things bulging yellow eyes seemed hungry for his blood.

And then a boot appeared, blocking the zombie from sight. Columbus could hardly make out the familiar voice screaming his name, demanding to know if he was alright, and he didn't really care, because the specifics suddenly weren't all that important.

Tallahassee was there, was armed, was ready, willing and able to protect him.

And in the end, that was all that mattered.

* * *

It's all blazing bullets and dying living-dead as Tallahassee defends the last thing he has left to live for. It's impressive in a shocking way—it's just like when he locked himself inside the midway game at Pacific Playland; zombies hurling themselves to death one after another, with not so much as a scratch on the snakeskin clad hero.

From where he's sprawled on the ground, Columbus watches through hazy eyes as the man who predicted a two week partnership defends his life, looking like a God damned superhero while he does. Lying in a heap, bleeding all over the floor, Columbus can honestly believe that this gun slinging zombie killer in his cowboy boots and hat will save them both.

They're gone, all gone—he doesn't need to see the bloody corpses to know that. But even as the heat builds behind his eyes he knows he can't let go now. Because the girls are gone, and he doesn't know how or why he knows, but he _knows_ God Dammit, and it's too much and if this is what just two more people feels like than he knows he can't handle even one more.

And so Tallahassee crouches low over the kid, who's bleeding and shaking and at this point is it really even saving any more but he doesn't care, raising his rifle as the zombies crawl closer, hissing and growling and spewing.

Because he doesn't know much, but Tallahassee knows this: he's lost enough family as it is.

He refuses to lose even one more

* * *

After an eternity Columbus's prediction seems to be coming true. The gun fire has stopped; the screaming zombies have stopped; the _chaos _has _stopped._

And now Tallahassee is leaning over him, trying to look at his face and his arm and not like he's about to have a mental break down. Columbus can't manage any more response than a relieved expression.

And then it turns horrified, and he knows this because Tallahassee's expression suddenly gets concerned, and no matter how much he _needs_ to be able to say or do more, Columbus can't, and that's why he will forever know that the events that happened next were—and would always be—all his fault.

* * *

Tallahassee only had eyes for Columbus—limp, grime covered, _living, breathing_ Columbus. It's why he never noticed the zombie hurling its self at him from behind until it was much, _much _too late.

* * *

He must smell like them, he figures. Or something like that anyway, because he's been lying in this perfectly pathetic heap going on three hours and they haven't done anything yet. Well, maybe a curious sniff or two, but nothing, like…well, they haven't eaten him yet. And in Zombieland, that's really the only zombie behavior that needs to be monitored.

Curling in on himself even more—an incredible feat, his knees are probably about to phase through his chest entirely—Columbus allows a single, pathetic whimper to escape him.

Of course he smells like them—he can already feel the heat building behind his eyes, the nausea as his stomach roils.

He hacks and gags, swallowing back bile. Sucking in a shaking breath, he lets his gaze fall to the festering bite wound on his wrist.

He must smell like them, he decides.

Or, at least, he will soon.

* * *

Columbus didn't care that it was raining. He didn't care that he was sitting in what was quickly becoming mud. He didn't care that his gun was lying too far away to be of help in an instant, or that the storm was quickly getting worse or that zombies could come flying out of the trees at any moment and devour his tiny little nerd body from the inside out should they so choose.

He didn't care because when you were someone with nothing left to live for, these were the things you just didn't care about.

Almost absently, he let his gaze drift down, to the dirty t-shirt wrapped haphazardly around his wrist. It did little to cover the carnage, which was spreading much more quickly than Columbus, who'd never stuck around to see the transformation actually take place, had imagined. Already the edges of the wound were clawing their way out from behind the makeshift bandage.

It was with only the faintest look of curiosity that he examined the puss-oozing places where his flesh was peeling away.

With a soft sigh, Columbus let his hand fall into his lap, his gaze drifting away once more.

* * *

Her name was Sacramento, and her frustration was mounting as she shook the doors of the small grocery, spitting curses at whoever would lock up their food supply before skipping town to go be a zombie.

Her focus was so on the door that she didn't see it approaching until the bullet blasted through the glass door, shattering it. A scream tore from her throat as she spun around, just as another shot rang out.

Her chest burned so painfully that for a moment she was convinced she'd been shot right through the heart—or she was having a heart attack at the very least—as her gaze landed on the zombie staring at her. It was standing in the middle of the parking lot, not fifty feet away, a gun trained on her. Sacramento didn't dare to breathe as the zombie took a single, stumbling step forward.

And then it faltered, dropping to one knee, and then both, before dropping to the ground with an oddly wet sounding _thud._

Behind the zombie stood Nome, his gun raised and his eyes impossibly wide as he stared at the spot where the zombie had just stood.

It wasn't until Atlanta came barreling around the side of the building, out of breath and shouting ridiculously, that Sacramento and Nome could finally relax.

* * *

The three survivors stared at the dead zombie for a long while, trying to figure out what about it made it so different from the others. How was it this zombie, among the hundreds now littering the Earth, was the first to pick up a weapon against the humans?

It was Nome who decided the point was really moot. One armed zombie meant little to him—he'd killed one once, he could do it again. Taking its gun, he gave it to Sacramento, and once they'd pillaged the thing for any other supplies they moved on, leaving the rotting corpse to keep on rotting, Nome holding back on his usual zombie-hate over-kill.

A double-barreled shotgun and three Ziploc baggies of shells was payment enough for him.

* * *

A few days later, it was Atlanta who pondered out loud about what kind of person the armed zombie had been. Who cares, had been Nome's response. They're just zombies, after all.

What stories could they possibly have to tell?


End file.
